Ovid wanders disconsolately through the monastery. "Are the rumors true," he wonders? Would Saint vroom really destroy the chatterbox?

Ovid continues walking. He watches Seekers of Perl Wisdom struggle with their questions. He wanders through the Code Catacombs to seek solitude in the pure joy of Perl. He nods with approval as other monks meditate or share their wisdom. Truly, the monastery is a place of wisdom, contemplation, and learning.

Then he wanders too close to the chatterbox. This great hall, where monks should be able to relax and enjoy themselves, is alternately chaos and harmony. Ovid thinks back to many of the great conversations he has enjoyed there with jcwren, kudra, and many others. He smiles when he thinks of all of the uproar that maleteen2000 has created, but he appreciates and admires the youngster's dedication in the face of adversity. But then Ovid's face darkens. The chatterbox is changing.

More and more frequently, Ovid has been disturbed in his thoughts by the vicious arguments heard in the chatterbox. He has even (gasp) heard profanity. He has watched in dismay, while the monastery has grown in popularity, as more and more "disrespectful" monks join. Some are powerful and obviously feel that Perl wisdom excuses poor manners. Others clearly have no remorse about simply being rude. Ovid realizes that if the rumor of Saint vroom eliminating the chatterbox is true, it may not be a bad idea. How sad that a few malcontents have to ruin things for others.

Ovid climbs to the top of the monastery walls and looks out at the unwashed heathens in the surrounding countryside. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's time to go exploring.

Well, that was a melodramatic way of talking about this, but the point is this: if you have a problem with another monk, /tell or /msg them or keep quiet. While I understand the desire to get things off your chest, please don't ruin the harmony of the monastery by turning us into another cesspool like /.

I had noticed that nasty comments seemed to slow down after Chip (on the shoulder) Monks was posted. I don't feel that my post necessarily had anything to do with that, but rather we were riding the crest of a bad wave that BBQ referred to in a response to that post. Unfortunately, either that wave is cresting again, or we're getting a lot of bad fish (if you'll pardon my beating that metaphor to death).

Here's a tip for monks that want to mouth off in the chatterbox about other monks: while you will sometimes get other monks to join in, most of the time (IMHO) you offend. Don't get me wrong, I also have opinions and I have often agreed with some harsh comments made in the chatterbox, but that didn't stop me from chastising the monk in question because the monastery is not an appropriate place to pick a fight!!! Respectfully disagreeing with another monk is one thing; pissing contests are offensive.

For those monks who did not quite understand the preceding comments, let me get out the big crayons: if you want to bash another monk, be quite or be gone.

I honestly can't recall where I saw the rumor of the removal of the chatterbox, but I can certainly understand if it's true. I think it would be a shame to have one of the charms of this site removed because some monks have no self-discipline.

Better to be lenient in what you provide, and strict in what you permit.

Or, another way, don't let a few bad apples spoil the harvest.

As for letting /msh continue; if it's that important, where you just couldn't bear to see it public, then use email. Or IRC. Or the telephone. Or write a (gasp) hard-copy letter and mail it. Why kill the fun of the occaisional amusing accident (and I've had my share) to save you the convenience of hitting the HOME key and looking before you hit "Talk"?

The point is not to spew random garbage out, but not to
take every piece of junk and escalate it into a flame-war.
(OTOH do give feedback. In private.)

As for /msh, well I do provide an email address when I
think it is appropriate. Unfortunately should the other
person be unwilling to take me up on that, and wants to
continue in /tell - well that happened today.

During the wars of COBOL vs Perl. Ovid and Me discussed the pros and cons. But we gave up just before the "p-contest".

Some of you think that we passed the limit of being respectful to each other. But I don't believe that I crossed that line. I know that Ovid didn't pass my line.

But when I'm on perlmonks... I think that the most important thing that I can do is show som respect against my fellow perl users. Share my views. I don't think that different rules apply to the monastery than in real life.

If I don't agree.. I discuss... and try not to offend...

But Ovid maid the most important point we're all here for the reason that we enjoy perl programming. And have fun while learning more about Perl.

I certainly hope that no one thought we "passed the limit of being respectful"! While you and I clearly have different opinions on this matter, I feel that we both made strong points in favor of our respective positions without being rude to one another.

Despite the fact that I disagree with your point of view, I enjoyed our discussion in Perl: Survival of the Fittest and I feel that it's a good example of how people can legitimately disagree with one another, and even disagree at length, without being rude. Some of our statements were a tad strong and we may be accused of attacking each other's statements, but we never attacked each other. That, for me, is as far as such differences of opinion should go.

Maybe what we need is lockouts for the chatter box.
This way monks of a sufficiently high level could recind lower level monks access to the chatter box.
Yes, I know that there wouldn't be much stopping people from registering as a new monk, just to cause problems.
However, it would give them the extra few minutes it takes to reregister/login to cool off a bit.
If it gets really bad, maybe pontiffs and up can enable/disable the chatter box entirely.
If someone really wants to code it you should be able to recind chatterbox access for any amount of time, or to make it simple just for an hour at a time.

Personally, I'm not a chatter, more of a lurker, but I also see the benefit of having the box.
However if people aren't going to play nice, maybe the chatter box needs to go away for a little bit every now and then.

I like the chatterbox, even if it is used unwisely by some people (I haven't witnessed these indicidents myself, btw). Even as I type, there is a good discussion where VulKen, tilly, and ar0n are getting some good Perl tutoring in. I'd hate to see that kind of interaction go away.

Are the problems mostly being caused by neophytes? Perhaps, rather than a ban, we should allow chat only for Level 2 or 3 monks and above...? By L2 or L3, a monk SHOULD understand the community we have built here enough to know what is appropriate and what isn't. It would also prevent a person whose account has been "banned" or killed from immediately creating a new one and continuing their verbal jihad.

However, I realize that some people think the XP system is flawed or easily-abusable, so perhaps tying these two foxes together by the tail is making for an even worse problem than we have already.

Forgive the reflections of a still-learning Perl monk, but is there not a "/ignore" feature to said Chatterbox? If so, rather than arbitrarily censoring such an extraordinary tool, teach users how to use "/ignore" to censor it for their own eyes.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other